Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was a Michigan Dope Dealer — Then Spent 12 Years In Prison | Nate Johnson

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

Nate Johnson grew up in Michigan, turned to the streets at a young age, and cycled in and out of juvenile detention and jail before a drug and robbery case sent him to Michigan state prison for 12 and a half years. But somewhere inside those walls, everything changed. He found his purpose, committed himself to rebuilding his life, and walked out determined to help others do the same. Today, Nate has built Michigan's largest reentry organization, co-founded the state's first reentry conference and a national reentry convening, and is now developing a "Reentry Ecosystem" aimed at changing how America approaches life after prison. _____________________________________________ Become an EXCLUSIVE Locked In: After Hours Member & receive a FREE merch box: https://lockedin.supportingcast.fm/ _____________________________________________ Connect with Nate Johnson: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nate-johnson-ncs Website: https://www.nextchapterssolutions.com/ _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 A shooting on the street 00:26 Introducing Nate Johnson 00:54 Free merch and bonus content 01:44 Growing up in Muskegon 02:19 Dysfunctional family life 05:40 Trouble begins in fifth grade 08:41 Selling weed and stealing bikes 12:52 The crack trade and double-ups 20:24 Police raids and the setup 27:05 Arrest and false evidence 30:27 Returning home and family struggles 32:20 Connecting with dad over crack 34:11 Gang violence and losing Ted 37:27 Seeking revenge 38:30 Learning the drug trade 41:41 Armed robbery and prison sentence 45:27 The robbery detail and trial 47:50 Sentenced and to prison 49:26 First years inside 51:26 Reduced sentence and faith 56:17 Dad's warning and spiritual awakening 01:00:23 Transformation and purpose 01:04:50 Coming home and fresh start 01:06:53 Launching Re-entry United 01:09:40 Inside conferences and expansion 01:12:17 Next Chapter Solutions and tech 01:16:53 Housing and entrepreneurship 01:21:12 Impact and thankfulness 01:22:15 Navigating change in prison 01:25:52 Respect and authenticity 01:28:10 Fatherhood and affirmation 01:33:08 Parents' passing 01:37:52 Family and kids' names 01:46:48 Teaching life lessons to sons 01:49:47 Final thoughts and thanks _____________________________________________ To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/LockedInWithIanBicka

He's like, man, get on the ground. And as we're jumping on the ground, we were in the bent over position. The bullet ended up hitting him in the right butt cheek. And it traveled all the way through his inside, came out the sign of his esophagus and collapsed his lung. So while we're on the ground, they're still shooting a couple more times. And then I get up, I'm like, come on, man, we got to go. That's Nate Johnson.

He grew up in Michigan, got caught up in the streets at a young age, and went from juvenile detention and jail to selling dope and eventually catching a drug and robbery case that sent him to state prison for 12 and a half years. But prison completely changed the direction of his life. He found his purpose, came home determined to help others rebuild, and went on to build Michigan's largest reentry organization. Grew up in Muskegon, Michigan, the west side of the state. We call it the fresh coast because we're right on Lake Michigan,

fresh water. So it's probably 30 minutes outside of Grand Rapids, which is probably most people are more familiar with Grand Rapids and they are Muskegon. Muskegon sounds like a name for like a rub, like a barbecue rub or something. It does. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's a nice, nice town, city, rather. And, yeah, those are my old stomping grounds, man. Tell us about your early childhood. Childhood, grew up two parents in the household, really dysfunctional. Both my parents had spent time in prison in Kentucky. They came up to Michigan to get into a recovery program. They were former heroin addicts. Came up, went into a program called Teen Challenge.

My mom did a full year. My dad, he could only do a couple weeks. He said, I'm too fresh out of prison. And, you know, you got this guy running the housing. And this is back in mid-70s, 77 or something. And he was like, I'm too fresh out of prison. The guy they got overseeing the dorms, you know, he ran his mouth a little too much. And he said, I just couldn't handle it.

So I laughed. You know. And then so, yeah, after my mom finished up, he ended up getting a job doing drywall. and got a place. A couple years later, they landed, my dad landed there in 77. A couple years later, my brother, my oldest brother, not my oldest bro, one of my older brothers, Eli came about. And I was in 79.

I was born in 81, my sister in 83. And I think at the very beginning, you know, just typical to individuals who didn't have a healthy version of what home life should look like, a healthy version of what, you know, marriage looked like, a healthy version of raising children. What does that look like? And so, I mean, they worked with what they had, and you can imagine coming out of the streets, going to prison, being involved with all of the different things that come with that. My, you know, my dad did three years for armed robbery. My mom had got caught up in a check writing scam.

You know, she ended up getting sent to two years in Kentucky. She got involved with prostitution due to the drugs. And so, you know, all the different things that come with that whole lifestyle. And they still had a lot of things they hadn't taken, that hadn't healed from, hadn't given enough attention to it so that they could fully recover. So imagine an environment like that. You're working with what you got, right? But at the same time, could be very dysfunctional.

And so, I mean, at the time, as I look back, because I've been asked that question a lot. And at the time, I had no frame of reference of anything different. So this is normal. Mom and Dad, fight. They argue. They yell. know, you do something stupid, you get whooped, you know, all those different types of things. Probably certain people had come into our family life that shouldn't have.

I remember one of those individuals who she was coming out of drug, like out of a drug recovery program, and she had molested my brother and I. And so, you know, and there was a number of different things. That was the only time molestation had taken place, but there was different folks that would come into our home that shouldn't have been. And I shouldn't say shouldn't have been. Their intentions was to help, but obviously craziness can happen, stealing and all different types of things. So grew up and doing life, played football, soccer, and yeah, got into sports for a little while in junior high. sixth grade, that was probably when things really started going a little sideways with my brother

and I because of the dysfunction in the home. We didn't like spending a lot of time at our, at, at, at home, you know, my dad, great dude. And at the end, we got to, our relationship was reconciled and was really good. But at these beginning days, he was more of an absentee father, you know, there, but not there. My mom is well, too, so there wasn't a lot of oversight over what we we were doing. And so we spent most of our time out in the neighborhood, which we didn't live in the best part of town. So, you know, so then you got all these other kids with similar stories like ours hanging out with each other playing sports, basketball, football, all the different things. And yeah, so did that and started getting in trouble in about fifth

grade, you know, getting into the little stealing thing from the gas station. I remember some of older kids in the neighborhood, they, like, chewing tobacco, you know, Codiac, Winter Green was their deal. And so we'd go up to plums. There's a local grocery store, and not too far from the neighborhood. And we'd go up there and, you know, try our, test out our stealing skills. We could do. We got away with most of them. But I remember getting caught the one time by a floor walker trying to steal some chewing tobacco for my brother and his friends.

And it went from there to stealing bikes, you know. And my brother and I always had like a little bit of a hustle to us. And so, you know, stealing bikes. And one of the things when we started stealing bikes, everybody liked having these silver caps. They used to put them on the cars, you know, for the air things. So we would steal bikes. And then every time we were around cars, we'd go through a parking lot, look for silver caps. And we had sell four for a dollar, all right?

Guys would buy them, guys who weren't really into the stealing thing, but wanted their bikes to look cool. Put a lot of reflectors in there in their bike wheel. So, yeah, just started there. And then it graduated to stealing cars and to robbing houses, selling dope. That was probably, I guess, sixth, sixth, seventh grade started. you know, I remember those kids we went to school with, he, he would sell dime bags of weed. And I remember asking him one day, it was like, dude, how did you start selling weed?

I had no frame of reference for this world other than what I had heard. Others talk about, you know, TV. And he was like, well, you know, I get, you know, I'll cut some grass or something. I got $25. dollars and I go buy a quarter ounce and then with the quarter ounce I can split it up into four dimes so I can make $40 off of them. I'm like for real? You're like yeah so I was intrigued about it. My brother got involved with it before I did it and I'm like dang so we can take 25 and we can we can sell four dimes and make 40 so I'm like oh that I I start paying attention next thing you know

I try it you know I'm like oh this is I like this. This is easy. Money comes quick. And so we would find little things like that. And I mean, we got, and I was in junior high. You know, you selling little dime bags of weed. And I'd spend, I can't tell you how many times I'd fall off. You know, you spent, so you made two for 15. And then so you didn't make the full 40. You end up with like $30, $35. And then let's go, let's go buy a couple of dime bags of weed from somebody else instead of us. and smoke some weed and get high and that thing. And then I remember we end up getting paper routes.

And we went down there. They only let one kid at a time have a paperout. And I wasn't old enough. I think I was 11. So this was back up a little bit. I was in fifth grade, giving me to go into sixth grade. And we talked the guy down at the skiing Chronicle, local newspaper, into letting us get two paper routes.

And so he let me and my brother get two paper routes. And in that, we were like, you know, well, we could start cutting people's grass in the summertime. So we went, we just got a, we got a blank piece of paper and we got some stencils and put on there with another local kid in the neighborhood. It said we called it JMP loan care. And so we got it all out here and then we had like a box next to it. You know, I mean, we'll cut your grass in another box. You know, we shovel another box. We rake leaves.

and, you know, like check the box that you want and then call us, you know, it was our landline number on the bomb call. Call our home and ask for Nate or Eli, and then we'll come. So, and we did that. So we made a bunch of copies. My dad took us down to the print place. We made a bunch of copies. And we got the newspapers. You remember on the weekends, newspapers used to come real early in the morning.

So we got like Saturday newspapers, went with all those copies. And we opened one up, tossed them in. And we dropped them off, you know, as we're taking them out. And so end up going out there and we ended up getting a lot of calls. And so we were cutting grass, raking leaves, doing all the stuff. And then we get other kids in the neighborhood and yards that we could get like $15. Some of them back then I'd look at it. It was like $15 for a yard.

And it was kind of a small yard, $25 for bigger yards. And then we'd get other kids in the neighborhood who would come and do it. And I'd have this kid help me on a $20. yard and I say, hey, I give you seven, seven bucks. You help me with this. Let's knock it out real fast. We'll toss the, toss the bags out to the road. I give you seven bucks and you can have it by time. It takes like an hour to do. By the time we go home, you know, you have seven bucks in your pocket. All right, man. And then we'd get some jobs and have other kids do them and we'd pocket a little bit of money and pay them to do some of the deal, right? So kind of just came normal thinking that way.

It was kind of just like a normal way of thinking, like, okay, well, how could we take that and, you know, profit off of that or do that? And so then that, then the weed thing came, and then crack cocaine came. And it was like, I remember it was some of the kids, I still remember the day, a guy from the neighborhood, which was like eighth grade. And we were in class at school, and he pulled on a big old lot of money in them. I'm like, so I asked me, I got in the home, I'm like, man, where'd you get all that money from? He said, man, he's, you know, and he, all cool, and he had to look the whole nine yards. He's like, man, I'm selling dope, man. And I'm like, dang.

Again, I had heard about it. Guys talk about, I would see it, but never thought in a way like, oh, well, I should do that. And so being around, now I'm beginning, I'm more interested. Now, now I'm asking guys questions and and then I learned about double ups. I'm like, you know, take $10, you'll get a $20 stone. So if you give him $20, he'll give you two stones. You got $40 worth of crack for $20. So I'm like, wow. So I remember saving my lunch money. My dad would give us $1.25 for lunch. It was enough to get you, you know, a sandwich and a soft drink and a fryer or whatever. So I remember getting that and saving my money up $10 and got me a double up.

And I remember being, I was so scared. I was like, you know, because this was like crack. You know, man, what if the police say, hey, because I was already in trouble with the law a little bit, right? So, you know, what if they came over? I want to check your pockets and this and that. Like, where would you hide it at? And I remember being so nervous and then doing the first sale was like, whoa. You know, I couldn't believe that I had just given $10 to this guy.

And he gave me a $20 rock. And then I sold it to someone and I got $20. I'm like, holy cow. Like outside of doing, you know, the grass and stuff like that, which would take like an hour and something to do for $20. box. I'm like, I could, I was so fascinated with it. Just went like that. And, um, and so obviously I had to go through that whole trial and air. And, you know, how does this thing actually work? And I remember a couple of times, you know, I'd get a double up for 40. So I had four stones now. And, and I would, um,

go in, uh, I, I remember making a sale one time, uh, to this dude. And it was a, he was a, he was a, I knew who the guy was. He was a local drug addict from the neighborhood. And he was looking. I said, what's up? I said, he didn't, you know, because he had known me as selling dope, but then I, you know, so he's out looking. I'm like, what's up? Man, you straight? He's like, you know, what did you talk? I said, man, I said, what's up? I said, I'm working now. He said, what's you got? So he peeped the play like, I'm about to get down on him. Because he knows I don't, I, I'm so new to the game. I don't know all the tricks. So he said, let me see it.

He said, is it real? I said, yeah, I got it from so-and-so, which was another guy in the neighborhood. Like, you know if I got it from him, you know it's good. So he takes it. You know, he just did it and picked the plastic off, pulled the dope out. Like, I didn't have enough sense. What are you doing, right? And he like, no, that ain't good stuff.

He puts it back of the thing, right? He says, huh? And then he's like, man, you can't be. out here selling that stuff, man. I'm like, what, it's good? What are you talking about? And he takes it all. I'm like, man, what do you do?

He took the plastic up. I could tell me, this looks a little different. Man, this dude switched the dope out and took a peanut out that he had cut up, make it look like, you know, something you would cut up. And he puts a peanut back. And I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, man, this is too hard. This ain't, this ain't the doping. When I look around for him.

he's already hit the alley he's out of there. Another time, a guy pulls up in a van and he's, you know, you, if you guys, because this was back then before technology has changed the game. Back then,

we were standing on corners and, and, you know, and people would come in and cars, and you'd get a little nod. If they were looking at you too long in, in this particular neighborhood, that meant they wanted to buy some dope.

And you could kind of see who was, if a guy looked like he just came from a drywall, site, you know, are from a construction site or something like that, you knew that they were trying to buy some dope. So they'd come, hey, what's up? Or if they slowed down and they're staring at you, like, what's up, man? And then, hey, what's up, dude, what's up? What you need? You're looking for something? You know, we'd have some type of lingo to identify who's, yeah. He said, man, I'm trying, I got 30. What's up? I come up to the van and it was a minivan. I come up. And it was a minivan. I come up. And I used to keep the dope up in my mouth.

If the police ever hit, you know, I'd always keep a drink on me. I could swallow the crack. And he said, yeah, 30. I said, let me see the money. So I spit three stones out, right? And I put my hand up to the heart. And he hits me with one of these numbers and the dope flies into the van. And I'm like, and then he speds off too.

So he hits it. And I don't even get time to get the money. So I'm like, man, and I never saw the dude again. He probably went to another neighborhood, you know, some guys on the other end of town hit them. Probably came out with a couple grand packs that day. And I just remember thinking like, man, I can't believe, you know, man. And I'm complaining to the guy. Man, don't never put your hand.

You don't never put your hand into the door. And you never exchange anything until you get the money to know. So I had to get schools in the game. So I'm like, okay, this is how. this works, right? And there was many other examples of learning. It's almost like, you know, the trade. Here's how you work the trade. This is, and this is a game out here. You got to pay attention to, you know, is this crackhead? Or this person trying to get down on you? Is this person the police? So it took a couple of years and figured out how to do this. And from there,

you know, did all the crime stuff and then got into about 15, 16 was when the dope was, was really, I had kind of set my mind to like, okay, I want to master how this thing is done. And so I did. And then I was doing, you know, at the time, this was 16, I'm selling, selling dope, doing pretty good. I left home at 15. It was just so dysfunctional. I had a buddy. He was 17.

from the neighborhood, he was selling dope. He ended up getting his first apartment, which was right in the neighborhood. And he was paying $400 a month. And I'm like, you know what? I'm out of here. So I left and asked if I could sleep on the couch at his house for a while. He's like, yeah, come on, man. So did, went and stayed with him and was hitting the, hitting the block and figuring this

dope thing out. And went, you know, started out selling grandpacks. Just, you know, the drug addicts and then got up to an eight ball. And then I was like, okay, you're cutting 300 off of this. And I'm buying this for 125. And I'm like, well, this is perfect, right? This is great. So I get into this, get into the eight balls.

I end up copping a quarter. It was like 250. I'm cutting five off of this. And I'm like, man, this is straight. So at the time, I didn't realize it, but in Muskegon and West Michigan there, they had a narcotics unit. And now, again, I found this all out later. At the time, the police department were like, how in the world is this white dude selling crack around all these black guys? Like, there's not another white guy in Muskegan selling crack.

But this dude. So it caught their attention. And I'm like, so they're thinking, they got to be using him to be a runner. Like, he's probably going, you know, like, hey, this guy's bought here, take this dope over here. So they couldn't pin their finger on it. And so they're like, man, what in the world is going on? So they end up that it was a summer of 97. They end up doing, I end up getting raided just like on the corner.

They are, I get caught up in a raid. They hit the corner. There's probably four or five of us out there. and narcotics, you know, they come out of everywhere, right? Unmarked cars. And try to catch you with the element of surprise and get you. And so, um, so they, they did. And, uh, I didn't, I just happened that day. I didn't have anything on me. It wasn't that I tried to plan it. It just, I just didn't have anything on me in that moment. They hit it. I'm like, dang. And one of the undercover officers said, He said, what are you doing out here, man?

I said, what do you mean? What am I doing? I'm just, we're just hanging out talking with my friends. No, you ain't. I mean, he calling me every name in the book. But at the time, you know, I grew up in the neighborhood, so I wasn't putting two and two together that they're thinking, what the world is this white dude out here?

Because we all grew up together. So I had, there was no frame of reference anything different. I live up the street. This is just normal, right? I'm hanging out with my friends. here. About a month later, they come back again, and we're sitting outside of a house. And some guys were, some guys from the neighborhood were trapping at and selling dope out of. And again, these are guys, we went to school. We all grew up together. So I'm not looking at it as like, oh, we're in a

drug-infested neighborhood. You know, they're selling crack. I probably shouldn't be sitting here. I'm just, we're just hanging out. We just happened to be sitting here at this house. So they, They raid me again, or raid us again, me and the group of guys I was with, and don't find anything. They end up catching another guy who was with me. He got called with some dope. And then the third time was later that fall in September of 97, they sent a lady in to buy some dope from me. And so she comes, she pops up one day. This is, I still remember it was sunny. I was standing in the driveway of a buddy's house. And this was a lady. She had bought dope for me like months ago. So I knew her. Her backyard and my mom's backyard met up together. So I

knew her in that capacity. And she's bought dope from it before. Well, she parks down the street. She comes up, you know, and they used to call me a white boy Nate because I was only white guy in the neighborhood, right? And so she was like, white boy, let me, let me, I'm going to hollet you what's up. I said, man, I said, what's going on? She said, man, I'm trying to spend. You got anything? I said, yeah she said i'm i'm walking on and it just something you know how sometimes you you spider senses just start tangling like i know her you know her backyards man so i'm just she's never come with a hundred dollars this is she's like one them one hey let me i'm gonna i want to i'm gonna spend 20 but got 13 in her pocket you know she's one of them got she's never going to come with the full amount

less her welfare game on the third or something right uh which which was rare that she would even have that. But it was, I'm not, so I'm just in, I say, I tell you what? Because it was the end of the month. I tell you what, I'm going to give you, I gave her seven for a hundred, gave her a deal. I said, now take this. I said, next week is the third because I knew she always got a check on the third. I said, I tell you what, I'm a front this to you, you keep the money. Okay. On the third, I'm going to come up to your house and then have some of your girlfriends with you. Because she always had, heard her and her girlfriends would get their checks and go in together and try to cops would go. So, um, so I knew that just from past history with her. So, uh, she, uh, you know,

it'd keep the money. Here goes it dope. Because I want to get her girlfriend. So then you get up there, they're all going to have, they get their checks. They'll spend a hundred or so right off jump. And then they'll just keep coming back for the whole day. So I'm looking at the big picture show. Uh, you keep that. And right before she left, we had a little small talk. Right before she left, She's like, you sure you don't want to? You sure you don't want to? I'm like, no. I said, just go ahead.

I did, but just, I learned how to trust my, over those two, three years, just to trust my gut on certain things. And I reserved there. It wasn't a strong conviction, but it was just like, man, something just, you know, something ain't right. So she, she does, she takes off a few days later. And I was in turn, I'm like, man, don't go up to him. And something just ain't right.

And I even had some guys in the neighborhood. I said, you remember her? And I didn't even know her name at the time. You know, I said, you remember such and such, and she's kind of big and smoke crack. She only comes. Her husband has the black Cadillac, and she'll drive that sometimes coming out. And no one could remember who she was. So I'm thinking, like, man, I'm strange now.

You know what I mean? No one, you can't put a face to her and this and that. Man, so the third come, a couple days I'm like, man, I probably shouldn't be. Shouldn't go up here. But I go up there anyway, two other guys. I go to my mom's house first and go in, grab a bite to eat. And then I walk behind my mom's garage and shed because I could look down the back of the shed, look into her driveway.

And I knew her husband had a black Cadillac. And so she told me, she said, now if you see the black Cadillac, don't come until it's gone until he goes to work. So I said, all right, this is in the morning, 8.39 o'clock. So I go down there and look and Cadillac still there. So I'm like, man, either I got played and I'm just going to have to catch her at some other time or her husband's still there. And I just have to come back later. So I leave.

And when I leave, I get down, you know, come out the house. We start heading back down towards the neighborhood. And then as we're walking, just hear that. You know, when a police, when they put the. pedal to the metal is just and turn around and I'm for certain he's going to go around us

and he's coming straight for us and so I step up on the curb me and one of the other guys another guy he's kind of riding a bike real slow and circles and stuff so we step up on the curb and he turns his lights on start slowing down comes out the curb

and when he jumps out I could hear back here, get on the ground, get on. I turn around the narcotics unit. I mean, they're like, they're coming. They, when I'm watching him, they're pulling up, and I didn't notice it, and I started hearing the noise, like, get on the ground. And I'm like, oh, snap, they got us. Well, you know, I'm thinking they don't got me

because I didn't bring it with me when I left, because something just didn't seem right. and so I had the pants that I had on I they they catch the guy with me he got some dope the other guy didn't have any dope and I didn't have any dope on me either so when I'm I'm there they handcuffed me take me down we go down to the city hall go down there and the officer's like well I want to do a we need to strip search you because we need to check your pockets make sure you don't have anything on you so he does he takes my pants off and it pulls my pockets out And he starts pulling all this like lint and dirt and everything onto, I don't know what it was,

but this is what it looked like, like a black piece of carbon paper, right, that he put all that on there. And then he had this tube with some like pink liquid in it. And then he kind of, he dumped all that stuff in there and he hung around and it turned pink. And he says, oh, he says, you got, you had cocaine on you. Now, he does this after I step over there and do my strip search that, you know, one of the other officers wanted, you know, take all your clothes off. He searches it because he passed my pants to the officer, and then that's what they do that. Then when I put my clothes back on, come back over, he says, you got dope, you know, you got some dope on you. You're going to be under arrest for possession of cocaine.

I'm not dope. I never, not one time, ever put crack in my pocket without it being in a plastic bag. So I'm like, that's absolutely impossible for that. We went back and forth. He said, well, he said, you're under arrest. He said, that's the evidence right there. So I'm like, man. So I go down, get arraigned in juvenile court, get sent and they sent me off to the youth home

and ended up doing close to 90 days off of a possession of cocaine, get out, and I'm right back at it, right? This time, I come home and my. My dad, I remember the day I got out. My dad had been, started dill and dabble and smoking crack. And so him and my mom had started when I was about 14, 15, they started kind of, it was a slow fade, begin to dibble and dabble into the drugs again. And, you know, they had both, while they were in prison or when they came out of prison

at this faith-based organization, it started going to church. And they started meeting with some other believers and had, ended up kind of starting like a little small church too. This was before the dysfunction came in an extreme level. So my dad over this time, 1450, he started dabbling dabbling dope. So when I come home from the youth home this time, I could really tell. I mean, he looked like he lost like 50 pounds and just like, and he was like zigety boom all over the place. And I would see him in certain areas, like in the neighborhood.

I'm thinking like, what are you doing over here? man, you're only over here for one thing, is to buy dope, right, and use it. And so I coming home that time, I remember getting a phone call. This was around Thanksgiving. And I was over at a friend's house in the neighborhood. My dad had called over there looking for me. And he got on the phone. And he was like, man, he said, man, I'm really struggling tonight.

He said, man, I need to get me something. He said, can you help me get you some? I said, what are you talking about? We used to call it, yay, back in the day, right? He was like, hey, you know, I said, what are you talking about some yay? He said, yeah, he said, I got, I got $20. Can you, can you hook me up with one of your partners? I said, yeah.

So maybe, you know, let's meet halfway, meet me up there on 3rd Street. And I'll meet you then. We'll go do something. So I remember the thing. I had just come home, so I hadn't got back to, you know, I took like a month just being cautious, just trying to figure everything out on probation. you know my i had to take drugs you know take drug tests and all the stuff so i'm in this this this this space here and um and uh he comes down i take him to one of my buddy's house he buys

some dope i remember thinking like man my dad just bought some crack like this is like the first time him and i have connected on that level right on the street level like that and um yeah and i remember that was like, okay, the dynamics of our relationship have changed now. Now he knows I sell dope. And I mean, he knew it, but we never officially had the conversation. So this opened up a whole new world. So now once I, you know, a little while later, I end up get back into selling dope again. And then so he's, hey, what's up, man? I need something. I'm going to spend 50. So, and he'd come through the neighborhood, get me into that. We'd make the sale. And then 97 came, went back in the dope game, the winner.

98 came. I ended up getting arrested again on some, you know, at this time I was just, you know, eight balls and quarters. I wouldn't make it a lot of them. I was making my just go smoke some blunts and drink, go buy me a pair of sneakers whenever I wanted to. So 98 came, I went to jail, to the youth home again, and turned, 17, so they put me up with the jail at work release, came home. And me and my best friend, Ted, we were out one night and some guys from our neighborhood had, were at the club. Now, we were just in the neighborhood. They were in the club and got into a scrap with some guys from another neighborhood. This eventually led into them getting into a fight. These guys came back that

night shooting at some of the guys in neighborhood. And we happened to get caught up in the rapture this whole thing. And turn to run away from a drive-by. The guys were pulling up in the car and then circled around, went into the alley, and the guy leans out the window. So think in an alley in the middle of a block, and we're here on the curb of the street in front of an abandoned house, getting ready to take off and run down the side of this abandoned house.

And he pulls out with an S.K. an assault rifle and just, I mean, let it go. It was just like, bah, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. The group, there was probably four or five people with it. They got in front of us and took off him and I are behind. And when we take to turn and run, he's like, man, get on the ground. And as we're jumping on the ground, we were in the bent over position. The bullet ended up hitting him in the right butt cheek.

And it traveled all the way through his inside, came out the side of the side of esophagus and collapsed his lung. Holy shit. So while we're on the ground, they're still shooting a couple more times. And then I get up, I'm like, come on, man, we got to go. And he's on his stomach. And I looked at his hands. His hands are kind of have the grass gripped like this.

And I'm like, come on, man, we got to go. And like 15 seconds later, he was dead. One of the guys comes running back. he's trying to pick him up. Now I'm like, dude, I said he's dead, man. So he runs across trying to call for ambulance to come and this. And him and I, me and the other guy, we ended up taking off. We ran his pockets, made sure he didn't have any dope, took his gun from him,

stuff. We took off and run into his mother's house to let her know. We go let her know. The whole house woke up. This is like 3.30 in the morning. Whole house wakes up and they come down to the yellow tape, you know, to where the crime happened, where he got killed that. yellow tape out there. And after that day, that was when things kind of changed for me.

You know what I mean? The dope, the violence. I was good at scrapping. I could play basketball, and I had a hustle to me. But this here, we had already been beefing with this other neighborhood in our town. And it was almost like an on-site. We saw them anywhere. We were scrapping, right? And I mean literally anywhere. We would be in a carnival and with people. And if we saw them, it was just immediately we got to scrap. And even at the arraignment of these guys who were charged with killing Ted, I mean, right after the arraignment, they were going to let 20 people in the courtroom.

And we were out. There's a group of us out in the hallway. Some of those guys had made it in from the southern neighborhood. They come out into the hallway and got to scraping with those guys right there in the courthouse. I ended up punching the window out of the door leaving the courthouse, got arrested, and just was full of anger. You know, wanting to catch one of these guys. I'm going to do this and that. And we did.

And, you know, there was a number of times we got into it with those guys. And one thing led to another end up. become something really crazy. And so, you know, at this time, I mean, I went on, wherever we saw them, it was, it was on. We beef with those guys. And then the dope began to, you know, I was like, gave more of my attention to selling dope. I didn't have him. So then it was just, you know, because we'd hang out with each other every day.

And now I was just by myself. So I just learned the dope game. And I remember one day, one guy came and scooted me up. It was older guy in the neighborhood. And because I just kept coming and buying quarters. And he was like, dude, what are you doing, man? Why do you just keep just buying quarters? What are you going to?

So I'm like, well, you know, how are you supposed to do? And this was the guy I was buying the quarters from, right? And he was doing really good. He's like, man, dude, you got the thing. You got this thing messed out, man. You got to learn. You got to go on. He called it a savings spree.

He says, you got to go on a 30-day saving spree. You buy the quarter, cut six. I'm going to let you get it for $2.50. as soon as you get to $2.50 in cash, come by another quarter. You still got another eight ball left over from the last one. He said, boom. He said, keep doing that until you get to $500. Then you come by half.

He said, and then once you get, you do that, do it a couple times. He says, then you get an ounce for $750. I'm like, all right. So I did it. And then once I got there, I'm like, okay. In my mind, as soon as I got money, it was like, it burned. a hole in my pocket. I'm going to go spend it and do this and that, right? And so I got there. He says, all right. When I remember buying my first ounce, he was like, he was like, all right,

now this is what you do. He said, you know, you're going to, you buy an ounce, get it for $750. You're going to cut $2,400. And the smallest it, because in Michigan, I'm assuming the laws are like this everywhere, but it was less than 25 grams was possession of cocaine. Anything over 25 grams became delivering and manufacturing cocaine. Okay. So it was 24 gram ounces. So if you ever got caught with a 24, with an ounce in Muskegon, it was 24 grams. So that if you got busted with it, you weren't getting a delivering and manufacturing, which was a 1 to 20. You get a possession of cocaine, which is a 1 to 4.

So cop to ounce, 24 grams. And then if you go rock for rock, you're going to do two for 30s, three for 50s. You're only going to make probably 18, 19. 1800, something like that. You're not even going to make the full of 24. He says, screw the rock for rock, man. He said, when you get the house, cut 24, do all double ups. To who? He said, to everybody. He said, then the clientele that you want, they're going to want to deal with you because you're giving double ups. You're not doing one stone for 20. Like the guy on the corner, you're giving him two for 20. So when he comes back, who you think he's going to? You come to you. The guy's on the block. He says,

He said, if there's them young cats, he said, as soon as they get, you know, they sell their little dough do doves for him. He said, they're not going to spend more than $100. I said, okay. So he said, then when you get done, 24, he said, you make $1,200. Oh, you bought it for $7.50s. That's $4.50. So I'm like, okay, yeah.

He said, always remember this. Any profit is a good profit. So I'm like, all right. So tried it. And it worked. and bought two and bought three and then bought

got to a big which was a big A thief was what we called it up in Michigan four and a half ounces and you know get it for 32 and then you're not on a corner

you're not hot and trap houses then we'd get guys sitting in houses and would sell dope and doda-da-da-da-da-da-down they end up getting popped again on dope case and this time

this was me getting caught slipping on my own. It was just one of them days was not paying attention and a cruiser rode up on me in the neighborhood and I took off running and dropped the dope. He saw it, got it, chased me down. I was in a house that I thought, you know, they didn't see me get in there. And next thing, you know, they come, long story short, they get in there to get locked up. End up sending me to boot camp. Come home, pick up, you know, do the thing, come back, pick up right where I left off at. come home selling dope. You know, some beef in the neighborhood with this other neighborhood was going.

And so obviously the violence and all that stuff was going on as well, too. And got into armed robbery, robbing other drug dealers. Because it kind of all happened as not intentionally, I guess. It was just guys from other neighborhoods were coming and trying to set up in houses in our neighborhood. And in the streets, I was like a very disrespectful thing to do, right? So these guys were coming in here. One thing led to end up pulling robberies off. Well, I end up getting caught for one of them.

We were called the Thanksgiving Day robbers, right? These guys were in a house or some girls from our neighborhood, you know, whispering sweet nothings to them, work in them so that they could sell dope. One of the guys from a neighborhood, he catches wind of it. And he's like, man, we got to get these guys. And I'm all for it. I'm like, come on. Let's do it, man.

You know, when you're in that frame of mind, that's like, you know, we can't let them come over here. And so end up getting popped on that. Three out of four of us end up going to prison. I get sentenced to 12 and a half years on the robbery charge. And then the dope case, because I was on probation at the time, so had a probation violation, I get five to 20 on the dope case and the judge runs it consecutive. So I got 17 and a half to on my minimum to do. Wait, so how did they catch you for this?

For the armed robbery. Yeah. So that night, one of the guys who was up there, well, I didn't know this at the time. This is when I found out later. One of the guys upstairs ended up having a beef with one of the guy, him and one of the guys that was with me from my neighborhood, they ended up getting into a fight like a year prior. So there was more going on than these guys were just in this house selling dope. He wanted to get them because they got to scrap and the dude ended up beating him up. Another guy who was with me, he remembered a few months back because this is in November.

Back in the summertime, him and some guys from our neighborhood, they were out, we call Muskegon Heights, which is kind of a city where there's a lot of chaos going on, but there's some hangout spots. And one of the guys upstairs ended up pulling the gun out on him and some other guys at the time. Not like this, but just pulled it. I don't know why these guys from this neighborhood are out here. Did that brand us the burner? But they knew who the dude was.

And so they said, you know what? You know, I'm going to catch that guy. I'm going to get him. So these two dudes who were with me knew this, knew about this dude because of previous beefs. I didn't. I knew the dude from jail. I knew the dude's name when they told me.

But me and this guy never had any beef. So when the police come that night, he tells on, he's like, yeah, Sneed and a dude they call Poo-Poo was here and robbed me and da-da-da-da. So he, and then the girls were up there, and one of the girls, well, I saw a white boy Nate down at the bottom of the stairs. And so they came and scooped me up. And then I didn't pass the, you know, it was the lie detector test. I thought, and I watched Law & Order too many times. I thought I could, I'm like, man, I, you know, because I knew they had no concrete evidence. So I'm like, because they come down, well, why don't you take a lie detector test to validate your

story that you went there? So I go on, go on there, go to the Michigan State Police. They take me up there and take the lie detector test. They tell me, I told me I failed. I was like, man, I was, you know, just, all right, be calm. Be calm. You answer the question. And so I thought I passed. He came out. He said, you didn't pass. It's that. So we come back with her saying that she saw me, me failing the lie detector test. When we got back to City Hall, one of the prosecutors was there. And he came in yelling at me and, you know, you need to tell us what happened. But there was probable cause to arrest me and arraign me and hold me to my preliminary examination.

So, yeah. And then when we showed up, then one of the other guys, said that he had saw a white dude. And so, you know, him saying a white dude, she said, white boy, nay, and she confirmed, who was Nate Johnson? He's from the neighborhood. I know him. So it was like enough to where I was like, you know, they bound me over to circuit court district, so I'm up in circuit court. Now, I mean, what do you do? This was all brand new to me. So got up to circuit court. And, you know, you try to do, I try to do the, I'm going to, I'm going to take it to trial so they adjourned it. They adjourned it like three times. On the third time,

they were like, no, we're ready to go. So I, I mean, I worked it all the way till it was time to pick the jury and thinking, oh, they'll come down to like seven years or eight years or something like that. And then I'll plead no contest to it. And they said that they were ready. And then when the judge says, Mr. Johnson, you know, explaining it like, here's the rules of trial. If you get found guilty, I'm going to sentence you between this amount of years here and here, do-da-da-da. And so he doesn't. I'm like, I leaned over to my lawyer. I said, tell him, I'll take the cop. I said, tell him I'll take the 12 and a half years, man. And so I did, sat in the county for like 10 months and then got sent off September 14th, 2001. So just a few days after 9-11 had taken place,

I got sent off to Riverside Correctional Facility in Michigan, which was like the corn. the reception and guidance center for all the guys. If you were 20 and undercoming to prison in Michigan, you had to go through Riverside. If you were 21 years and up, you went to Jackson State Penitentiary for the reception of guidance center. So landed there and, yeah,

got screened up for level four because the amount of time that I'm there. And so I end up going to St. Louis Correctional Facility in St. Louis, Michigan, not in St. Louis, Missouri. So I end up going to level four, St. Louis Correctional facility. get there and start doing my bid. And I kind of, you know, I got there was a bunch of guys who I was on the streets with,

even from my neighborhoods. So get there and it's almost like, here's 15, 20 guys. What's up, man, da-da-da-da. It was strange. It was just like being back in the neighborhood, right? And here we are. Some of us are in the same housing block and this and that. And so it was just like picking up right where, like the streets orientated me for

prison life. These guys had already been here like a year or two, so they kind of already had things going and people knew who they were. And then I just kind of joined in with the flow of what they were doing. And then I remember why I was there. I didn't have my GED and I was under 20. So they put me in this USDA program to get my GED. So there was a bunch of us young guys, everyone from 17 to 20 years old, we were all in this housing block and it was off the chain. And so got in there There was a couple homeboys from the city, from Muskegon. They weren't from my neighborhood, but they were from the city. And I got in here and started to rotate with some guys out of Southwest Detroit, some cobras.

And we were bunkies and all on the same rocks. And we just, you know, it just seemed natural, right? And we were on the yard together, worked out together, moved together. You know, when things happened, you know, we did things together. And so we were there getting our GED. and then you had to get your GD or you get out the housing block. And then they'd send you out to G, you know, to a different, you know, where there was more freedom, more time on the yard.

And so did that. And that was like my first couple years in prison. And then summer of 2002, I ended up getting a lawyer or a visit from my appellate attorney. And she comes up and says, you know you got, we need to look at your case because some of your time, you got a little more time than what you should have. I'm like, you know, I'm thinking I played no contest. and guilty to the dope case, what could possibly be happening, right? So she says, yeah, so you got this time here.

And, yeah, you got this time and you got a little bit of extra time. So I'm like, oh, okay, well, tell me about it. So I'm like, I'm standing up thinking she's getting ready to tell me, you know, hoping you can get out next year type deal. So she sits me down. She says, you know, the order of sentencing on your dope case, you were given an invalid sentence on the dope case. I'm like, you know, this is legal.

mumbo-jumbo-jumbo. So I'm not interpreting any of this at that time to later. And then she said, you know, the dope case is the case that has the consecutive sentencing clause attached to it, not the armed robbery. And the instructions on that consecutive sentence says that the dope case has to be the last sentenced imposed upon you so that it runs consecutive to another term of imprisonment. But he gave you, he sentenced you first on the dope case two months before you got sentenced on the armed robbery case, which when he gave the consecutive sentence, they didn't run consecutive anything, so therefore created an invalid sentence. I'm like, yeah, that's exactly what happened.

Yeah, you know, all I could hear was you could get out early. So she said, well, we'll file a motion and we'll see what happens. And so she, so she said, I said, go ahead, let's do it, you know. So she files a motion back with the circuit court, back with the courts. And when I leave there, man, I'm like, you know, I had never wanted to. of God involved in my life until then, right? So I'm like, five years could come off. My minimum will go from 17 a half to 12 and a half. You know, when your younger, time goes a lot slower, right? So that 17 a half just felt whatever. So I'm like, God, man, please, you know,

get that time on. I swear, I'll quit smoking. I'll quit listening to this music. I'll quit hanging out with these guys on the yard. I'll read my Bible. And, and, and so I'm like, man, God, you have to do this. So she files this motion. A couple months later, she says, we go back for oral arguments in October. So I'm like, oh, God. And I'm asking guys in the law library. So what do you think? Is this what she told me? What do you think? They said, dude, that judge ain't about to do anything for you, man. He's, you know, I've seen he's got similar cases like this in the law books. Yeah, he didn't overturn him and this and that. I'm like, well, she said, we got a really good shot. They're just busting my bubbles. I'm like, so I'm defeated. I'm thinking, man, this is.

whack, man. So I'm like, God, please do this, man. I need to get out of here. I promise I'll be good. And so go back in for oral arguments. And the judge sides with this, dude. The judge says, I'll switch it. Hey, what do you do? He just switched it from consecutive to concurrent. So if the Department of Corrections had it on their paperwork, okay, we need to readjust, you know, sentencing. So it leaves me with 12 and a half years on my minimum. And at this time, I'm like, this is like a super, supernatural miracle from God. What all those guys were telling me no to what I just saw, I'm like, man, I had this thought. I'm like, man, I better kite the chaplain and ask to go to church.

I don't want God getting pissed off because I said, hey, I'll quit doing all this stuff if you give this five years off me. I was afraid, man, I might get a court date. This is all so fresh and new. I'm like, man, I might get a court date and get re-sentence. And this time it'll stick. So, I mean, I was like a fear. like, man, so I hurry up and kighted the chaplain, said, no, they put me on the service, and I went

over there. And I'm looking around where it's in the gym. And I didn't talk to anyone, know anyone I look in the back and the chaplain have all these books back here. So I'm like, well, let me, I'm going to get me a book while I'm over here, one that talks about the Bible. And I was looking at the books. And I saw this Bible as a New Testament about it, had this dove on it, and I told him, set free on the inside. So I grab it and I look at it. And I look at it. Because in my mind, all Bibles were King James Version Bibles, you know, hither thou go thine unto you. And I'm like, I couldn't even comprehend it.

So I opened this thing up and I'm looking at these, I'm like, okay, this is more my speed. I can work with this. So I don't bring them back to myself. And in for the next four or five months, I would read like a chapter a day. That whole situation, kind of something woke up on the inside to where I had, I'd been in this two, two and a half years. I ain't thought about God reading my bomb on none of this stuff. And let me back up.

Six months before I got locked up, my dad had come home from a drug rehab program. He had went for a year, came home. I was on tether for, I got arrested for armed robbery, beat the case, but had four months to do on tether. I was on tether, so I had some time on the weekend to get out and he'd come out. And now me and my dad, I didn't go into the whole story. I know we don't have all the time, but, you know, I was selling dope with him, but we were doing other things, like breaking the law together on a couple things, right? So he came home and said, hey, man, I'd like to pick you up for lunch.

And he was standing with this couple, and he'd come over picking up for lunch. And I told him, I said, man, I said, man, I got a, I got this guy. I'm going to get, it was a guy I was close enough where I could rob him and get some, get some money or some dope, at least in my mind I thought I could. And I'm like, man, why don't you do it with me? I said, you stand with that couple. you get you enough money to get you, you know, your own apartment, get you a car, da-da-da, get on your feet, get out of the house.

And he told me this. He said, man, hey, he said, man, God really changed my life in that program. I'm like, I changed you. Why? And he told me this. He said, man, you keep playing with some guns. God's going to put you in a place to get your attention. I'm like, dude, are you tripping, man?

And he's like, he says, you need to be careful out here. 90 days later, I get arrested. Okay, so now, fast forward back in the penitentiary. I never forgot that conversation. We planted a seat on the inside. So the next four or five months, I'm reading a chapter or two a day out of the Bible. And man, you know, it was like the light, like this light, it was like this slow, like this light bulb was coming on. And it was getting brighter and brighter.

And I remember listening to this guy, you know, you're in your cell, we were on 21-hour lockdown level. force. I'd watch, you know, a couple guys on preachers on TV. And this guy came on. He was talking about, you know, judgment day and this and that. And he's like, man, you know, there was this judgment and this judgment, which one are you going to be in front of? This is the good one. This is a bad one. So I'm listening all this stuff. And my time he got done, man, I'm like, I'm smoking secrets to myself watching this guy. I'm like, man, I'm thinking in my head like, man, you're going to hell. You keep doing that. Throw it in the trash.

Get to the yard. A month later, this other guy, Bishop T.D. Jakes, he came on. Getting ready to go to the Chahaw. This guy comes on and it says the title of his sermon, Bishop T.D. Jakes will be back here and he's going to be preaching on bad boys and the God who loves him. And I'm like, ooh, I need to hear that. Bad boys and the God who loves him. I take off to the Chahawaw, come back, turn on.

He's just getting ready to come on and preach. and this is they're replaying this video from a year prior comes on he looks right into the camera he put the camera on me and he looks he said i don't know who i'm talking to but the next god told me to tell you the next 10 years of your life i'm getting ready to do something so epic that you wouldn't even believe it he said i got some things he got some things he needs to work out of you and did do do all this thing he's the next 10 years at that time i got exactly 10 years and one month left on my prison sentence. So this is like one of those sermons where you would feel like someone tipped the preacher off

that you were there because he's reading your mail. So he's reading my mail to say, he has my undivided attention. He goes through the whole, I mean, gets to talk about these guys in the Bible, how Noah was a drunk and God used him to start over with knowing the ark, right? King David committed adultery and then called her husband. And once he was found out and ordered him to be killed by his own army. And then Paul, the apostle Paul, who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament from a prison cell in Rome, before he got saved, he was killing Christians, and he was casting the vote that they'd be incarcerated.

And I'm like, I've never heard this before. And I was here, and he went on and on with all these different examples of the people who wrote the Bible and how they were locked up incarcerated and they were criminals. And then how Moses, who wrote the first five books of the Old Testament, killed an Egyptian man, was a murderer. So I'm like, and the things that he was saying about God's heart, just, it's just something inside of me, just like, whoa. Next couple days, it was just, it was, I was just feeling convicted.

Like, man, I got to do something. And in April 28, 2003 that night myself, I don't know how to explain it, but I was convicted from what I was doing and was thinking like, man, what if my daughter saw me now the way I'm behaving in here? Would she be proud of me or would she be ashamed to say that I'm her dad? And obviously what was true, I mean, she'd be like, that's my dad. It'd be a little embarrassing the way I was acting. And that night in my cell, April 20, 2003, I knew that this was it.

Came off the big yard on my cell and back to my cell. And I just, I said, it was an unorthodox prayer. I'm like, look, God, I said, this is real. I said, I want it, man. I said, you changed my heart. You got me for the rest of my life. And Ian, I don't know how to explain it other than Jesus walked into that. sell and set me free.

I mean, broke everything off. That night I had a voice in my head. I knew it was Lord at the time. I'd get everything. I'd lie up with the word of God get out. Flesh my cigarettes, got rid of my tape, everything. All I had was one book in my, because everything was, you know, stolen or something. My freak books, you know, rip them up, flush them down the toilet.

And so the next 10 years was just, I went out and told the guy the next day, the next day, ended up going to tell them the guys what had happened. And they thought I'd fell off my rocker. Because they had no, I didn't tell them I was reading my, but they had no clue. Outwardly, I was still the same out there, but inwardly and myself, I'm reading this thing, right? And so they had, I didn't tell them anything, give them any forewaring told them, and they thought I fell off my rocker. I went and introduced myself to some Christian brothers that I felt like, okay, these guys are the real, their handshake was matching their smile. Because you get a lot of guys in there to do the church thing.

and, you know, they'll be out chasing a sissy around or you're on the gambling table. You're doing everything you're not supposed to do and you're not living up to who you say that you are. But these particular guys who are in my housing block, who I was kind of paying attention to to see if they were the real deal. I went up and introduced myself and start hanging out with those guys. So I got 10 years left and I spent the next 10 years just, you know, renewing my mind, really dealing with all this stuff in here from childhood and kind of, you know, the brokenness, my own brokenness and knowing that I wanted something totally different when I went home. I didn't want my kids to grow up in the way I did, this and that.

And, you know, I walked with guys, disciplined guys in there, wrote a newsletter called The Real Thing for seven years inside. We'd send it all throughout the state of Michigan. And then a couple of years before coming home, I was in a conversation with a guy, Christian brother, on the yard. And he said, what are you going to do? You know, it's getting real. It's almost time to go home, getting ready to see the board in like seven months, which, you know, up to them, you don't entertain them kind of thoughts. You say, I don't want, okay, where to go home? But now this is like, man, I'm getting ready to go see the board and go home.

He said, what are you going to do? I said, man, I don't know. You know, I don't know, man. I think I thought about maybe selling cars, maybe getting to real estate. stay, I even thought about going to college maybe, getting a degree and doing something that way. I said, but I'm not quite sure. He said, and we had some small talking. He said, well, that just pisses you off?

I'm like, man, I said, you see that guy over there? I said, man, every time he comes to the, comes to the, join. He's been here four times. Every time he comes here, he's crying about the food and the phone calls. I got over there. He's been here three times, and he does the same thing. He cries on the phone to his girl, talks about how much he misses her, and he does his little two-year stint. He goes home.

He's back within six months. And he said, you know, Nate, and this is like one of those conversations that changed my life. He said, you know, Nate. He said, when you discover what drives you up the wall, you'll realize that that's what you were created to solve. And then the light bulb came on. I knew in that moment that I was here to teach people how to win the war, we're staying out. I had to get out first, the moan solution than that. But I knew internally, I had kissed the game goodbye.

The option to go backwards wasn't even on the table. I live at the rescue mission for the rest of my life. You know what I mean? I might have to be at 5 p.m., but I live at the rescue mission for the rest of my life where I come back here. And so end up finishing up the next two years, go get my parole, come out May 30th, 2013.

And then, I mean, there was such a hunger and a fire in my bones. Ian, there was, I was just off and running. And I, I, I was, man, literally a month later. I come home, this guy I never met before, gave me a car. Just out of the blue, gave me a car. Another guy had walked with mentor, disciple when I was in prison, he came home a couple years before.

Me bought me like $700 worth of clothes and mailed them to me from Detroit. Ten days out, I meet my wife at church. And it was just, and from there it was, I started making connections and networking and meeting people because I had this vision to want to do this prison reentry program. And came home, talked to anyone who could listen, recruited a team. We put a team together and dreaming about reentry what it would look like, what a program would look like in Muskegon, da-da. And then come January 1, 2016, we launched Fresh Coastalines, which is now Michigan's largest reentry program.

in the state. Four months prior to that, planted a church with another couple. My wife and I, we planted a church. So I had a game plan. I hustled legitimately in 2013, 2014, 2015. I had a game plan. 2015 came. I wanted to get off parole. May 30th, got married, July 10th, planted the church, September 19th, January 1, 2016. We launched Fresh Coast Alliance. And even though I had given my given my life to the Lord, I still had my ability to hustle, still had my ability to recruit. And I used those, I used those, in my words, was to help clean up what I had helped mess up on the streets and did it. And we launched and scaled it to end up acquiring a counseling practice owned and operated

that, a housing program. We were in a former school building, had the school building given to us. at the beginning, they had the church and the reentry program on the inside, you know, in the same building together

and just scaled it over the next five years. And it became over a million dollar organ, annual budget every year. And scaled it. And we were doing it. It was literally a one-stop shop

for whatever you need. It was called Fresh Coast Alliance's name of the organization. And then in 22, 2020, I went to a, I was asked to speak, speak at a conference in Michigan and Lansing. And these folks, man, I went here. I was so irritated

the whole day. All they did was murmuring and complained about everything. We can't do housing because, and it's pointing the finger at everybody but themselves. Instead of just, okay, you identify the problem. I'll solve it. But it was just harping on the problem, pointing the finger at the Michigan Department of Corrections. And it's this group or that group. Who cares, man? So solve the problem. And I'm thinking like, everything these people are crying about. about, we solved them at Fresh Coast. And it just irritated the message. At the end of the day, I spoke, leave, and I called a friend of mine who were in the

same work, I called her and said, man, because she was there too. I'm like, how do you, I, man, I never want to go back to that, to that group again and do anything with them. She says, I know. They've just complained about everything. and there was nothing there and solving the problem. We didn't, all the energy and conversations was just complaining and murmuring, right? And I said, man, you know, we need to, we need to, we need to, why don't we just get a group of

solutionaries together and get everyone together and just have a thing where we celebrate the wins and discuss the solutions and how we can solve these problems as opposed to murmuring and plane. And so we did in like 90 days, dude, this was in July, by November, we launched what's known today as Reentry United, which has now become a national conference in Michigan. And we just put word out with all of our networks, and we sold out in two weeks. Over 350 people came. And then we had to stop individuals from coming in because as we were talking about what we were going to be discussing, who was coming, and what we were going to be doing here that day at this convening, people were like, that's what, you know, it was like something woke up on the inside of them.

They wanted to be a part of it. And so we launched it and we were amazed. And then the director of MDOC, her administrator, she said, you know, I haven't come down to Lansing. Let's see how we can help them with this. So we do. And I said, man, we need to be inside the prison, taking reentry United and doing an inside version of this in the prisons here in Michigan. He said, let's do it. He said, we do all the level ones and level two since those guys are close to get into their outday. So we did it.

That next year in 23, we launched Reentry United Inside conferences. And every month we go into one of the prisons in Michigan. And we bring resource groups with us. So there's probably about 50 or 60 of us that going all together at the level ones and level two's. And then we go into level fives, which are guys who are maybe part of a security. threat group. They're on lockdown for, you know, maybe I got caught with a stabbing or their security levels high for whatever reason. We go in and we talk with those guys and try to encourage

them to, you know, stay out of trouble so you can get down to level two. And then you could potentially go to college and get you undergraduate degree or do a vocational trade of some sorts. And down at level one and level two, it could change the rest of your life. And so we bring the right kind of guys for those environments. Like level five guys, the guys I take in to speak to them, aren't the guys that I, you know, go speak to level ones and level two's, right? Because you've got to be, you got to speak in line with the understanding of your audience. And then these guys had to have been in that level five environment, but now they get it. The light bulbs come on. So we go in there and we're, we've met with over 2,000 men and women.

We go to the women's here on Valley every year in February. And we went, so we've spoken over 2,000. I was probably closer to 3,000 now. inmates and brought resources to the men and women inside the prison system. So we launched that in 22, and we just had our fifth annual conference back in August at Grand Valley State University. And then some things that happened at Fresh Coast with some of the people that I started out with, or some of them we had ended up letting go, and then it just kind of changed the culture and the vibe there. And I began to lose my passion with it. And it was just like, I just, I'm not feeling it anymore.

And so I end up letting the board know in 24 that I was going to be leaving. And so we had a program for the next three or four months or whatever. My exit program and or my exit process, being the founder of it, just kind of want to steward it with our donors and everyone, give everyone a heads up of what was getting ready to come. And then I was already planning my next venture, next chapter solutions. And so went in to quit, you know, my last day there was January 15, January 16th. I got, I've already got meetings scheduled to start talking about the next thing. So now

we're building pre-entry curriculums. So for organizations or departments of corrections who are inside, we have curriculums that we can take that, I mean, they're put together with modules, facilitators, guides. People can take them into the prison and facilitate them. And it's not your normal pre-entry kind of a curriculum. We're dealing with things like one chapter is, you know, enjoy where you're at on the way to where you're going, right? You get this prison can either become your cemetery or your university. Your cell can be your cage or your Chryslist. It could be the place where you, you change from a caterpillar to a butterfly and become someone totally different. And so,

So that one chapter is on, the mundane things of life are what prepares you for greatness, right? Another chapter, you know, children have imaginary friends, adults have imaginary enemies. You know, let someone not text you back quick enough. But what we want to discover, and what we try to help them walk through is what happened during that liminal space between when you had imaginary friends when you were younger to now there's imaginary enemies. what happened in between because if we can discover what happened here and we can unravel the conflicted life there, then we can bring ourselves back to a place to where our dreamer actually works again. Our creativity is restored and we can actually be effective and impact the world. And then we have some reentry curriculums that we do to, you know, as an organization, has folks

just coming home and they don't have an eight-week course. We have some called the Fresh Out series. I'm out now what curriculums and just helping them navigate. And if they have a facilitator who can facilitate the course and build relationships with the men and women, it could be something very dynamic. And then we're getting involved into the tech entry space. So technology and reentry. So we've created digital resource navigators. We've outfitted one for the state of Michigan.

We can outfit them for any state where you can put it in the county, plus the resource you want and click it. We've done all the homework because we've searched all the counties out, and then we have all the information right there, a short description, their address, phone number, email, all of that, where you can get connected while you're still in prison with those resources to help build out your own reentry program, right? Your process when you come home with all the different resources.

And then like virtual reality goggles, we put grocery stores in them. So now they can put a grocery store that looks similar to a grocery store out here, more smaller ones like an Aldi's or something. And then they can go shop and they have hands. You can grab items and put it in your basket. And then you check out at your own little personal kiosk, you know, scan your items. And then you have to pay with Apple Pay. And the goal is to give them to build their confidence.

up. So when you come home, especially guys who've been gone 30 plus years and they have no frame of reference for a cell phone technology or any of that. But this will help build their confidence up so they know, okay, when you go out there, this is what the store is going to kind of look like. And I'm going to check out there and I'm going to need tap pay. So think of that. And we'll take them through like a four-week course where we learn, here's what the grocery store, here's what you need to be prepared for when you go home. Think of opening up a laptop and empty to fill out a digital application, right? And so all of those different things that we're doing within the tech entry space.

And then we have a podcast called the Reentry Exchange where we catch the guys their first 90 days out. And we sit down, me and a local parole agent in Muskegon, we interview them. And then we try to get the good, the bad, the ugly. We record it and then we send it back in. So the guys who are getting ready to come home can see what some of the challenges. And then some guys, they come out and got a good support system. They don't have a lot of challenges, right? And so they do fairly well, get a job in two weeks.

They've got a car. They're about to move into their first apartment or whatever, and they've only been home three, four months. And then you've got others, you know, I'm still at their mission, trying to find a job. And so then we have a team that meets every Wednesday, like a mentor. group between law enforcement and formerly incarcerated people to help. And then we bring different resources together to help solve some of those problems like employment and housing for the guys that are struggling a little more. And yeah, and then we try to make sure that we got all the resources right there and at their disposal so that we can eliminate any barriers

or challenges for why someone would go back to prison. So we want to teach people out to win the war over staying out. And yeah, the tech is pre-entry and then we have the re-entry stuff, those meetings. And then post-entry, we're going to, we're in the process now with some of our investors on building homes, just, you know, like 1,100 square foot home, two, maybe three bedrooms that would work within the framework of what someone coming home, what their annual earnings would be where they would be able to purchase a home and begin to invest into that now and teaching them different things like, you know, just plan to live in the house five plus years and then you could turn around and rent it out to someone else and then you could, you know,

pull a line of credit out on that and then you could go purchase your next home and teach them because a lot of, you know, if you're coming home at 40 plus years old, you, you're behind the ball about 20-something years, right? So you didn't have time to have a job and do savings. in a 401k. So how can we take what you're doing, you know, where you're at right now and how can we help accelerate that in an effective way, right, and get get guys set up to where later on when they're older, they have something that they could fall back on. It's kind of teaching them, we have an entrepreneurship program too. So those who come home with that broker's mentality and their entrepreneurs at heart, we can teach them how to, you know, how to leverage a skill set

that they have and this, you know, the appetite to want to solve a problem in their community, teaching them how to discover that problem if they don't already have one and then giving them skill set on how to actually go and do it and bring a dream to past. A lot of guys, we guys, think of all the cookups we did in prison, right? You got some guys that love to cook. You know, they had kitchen jobs the whole time, right? And so these kitchen jobs and they come home, a number of guys, one of the guys went through our program. He started a restaurant and ice cream parlor, him and his wife. A couple of guys have their own food trucks.

You know, I mean, they worked at it, hustled for a couple years and spent $60,000 on a kitchen truck. And I mean, like, top-notch deals and barbecue pits. And then we got one guy, Jason, he has his own landscaping company. I'm not talking about just some little rinky-dink deal, but, I mean, like the real deal because he would come to Fresh Coast, say, hey, you got some guys, you know, over spring clean, you got some guys, man, send them to me. I'll pay him $500 a week, you know, and then I'd send a couple guys to them, and they'd help, you know, the backpack blowers and getting people's yards together.

So we bring them in, sit them down. train them up and send them out and then teach them just to think different because you think about what is the difference between some of us coming home who are doing pretty good and have started things or whatever and then those who don't I think it goes back to just you know what's the difference between successful people and everyone else it's just simply the way they think right so if we can reconstruct the way that we think and begin to just think differently you can be successful Now, you may have some things you've got to readjust and heal from. I'm not trying to minimize any type of trauma effects and all that stuff.

But if I can shift the way that I think, anything is possible. Every single one of us was born to impact the world around us, a history maker. The history maker is someone who's the bridge between what is and what is to come. And it may all fall on you. It may all fall on the next person coming home. and we have an opportunity to rewrite our story. And we have an opportunity to take what was meant to be to work against us. Now we can use it to work for us.

You know, like locked in with Ian Bick, right? I mean, this wouldn't be here if you hadn't gone to prison, right? I think of Fresh Coast and Ranch United and even Kingdom Life, the church, I mean, half of our body there formally incarcerated people. When people come home from prison, that's where they end up coming to because everything we got there. And the next chapter solutions, none of that stuff would have ever happened if I hadn't been to prison. So are you mad? No, look what it did.

Because, I mean, if any of us were, if that hadn't happened, we would have probably kept continuing doing what we were doing. And who knows what if it would have been worse or gotten killed or anything could have happened. But, you know, we used what was meant to destroy us, and now it's actually working for us. And it's become one of our greatest blessings. And think of all the people that we get to impact because of one decision that had big consequences, but we had a mind shift. And we learned how to, instead of letting it work against us, we let it work for us. And now we've turned it around and we're able to use that to impact lives all over the world. Now that change you were able to make in prison, do you think it's a lot harder?

For people, like, it's easier said than done. I mean, you look at if you're saying a maximum security prison, you're surrounded by violence, you're surrounded by gangs, and you have that same epiphany that you did, how does that person navigate that? You know, so that it makes sense, like with me, like, you know, when I went in, my reputation came with me. You know, I don't like talking about all the crazy stuff all the time. You know, I'll give it, I'll talk about it to give context for things. But, you know, my reputation came with me. And so I didn't have any problems when I was in prison. You know, there was a bunch of guys that I was with.

Everyone knew. So it was kind of like things were set. It just the way I moved and handled myself and the way I rotated inside, I didn't have the problem. So, but if there was someone else who probably was like, well, you know, I'm not coming in with, I'm not getting to prison and seeing all my buddies I grew up with on the prison. yard and other guys are seeing, I'm connected with those guys, and these guys have already established their deal. I am of the belief that that's an opportunity to trust God, that if, obviously, if you felt like

he pursued you in this prison cell and you had a spiritual awakening because of Jesus Christ, then obviously he's going to protect you in those moments. But then, you know, everyone doesn't have an easy time in prison. I mean, that would be the perspective of what I would tell someone. Now, does that mean it is always going to pan out that way? I don't know. But I do know this. One thing about prison life is people will respect realness.

And if you're going to commit your, if you're going to come out and say, hey, I've given my life to Jesus, and I'm living for him now. Your handshake better be matching your smile. Because if guys come, you come out talking about, yeah, I love the Lord, but then you're over here doing this, that, and the third, your handshake isn't matching your smile. No one's going to respect you now. And I've seen some of the guys physically, they weren't going to do anything, right?

These were guys like thrown into wolves. But these dudes were, they were who they said that they were. and they didn't get involved in nonsense. They didn't get involved with all the crazy. And not to say that they didn't have any challenges during the time, but there was no, like, violence that came after them to want to hurt them. And these guys were just, you know, they were just the real deal. What you saw was what you get.

And I would say that's probably a supernatural protection from God or because of the culture and the respect level in there. that that was just a byproduct of their fruit, their integrity of doing what they said that they were going to do because you got so many phonies in there. I mean, I've never met so many big-time drug dealers in all my life. And then when you talk with guys from their city, these guys, you know, they were nickel and diamond.

Everyone's a kingpin in prison. Yeah, you know, I got this and I had this. And then soon as I can remember, oh, so many stories of guys, you know, or some of their buddies or guys from their city would ride in. And all of a sudden, and he wasn't doing none. He was out there stealing, you know. You see that all the time in the feds. Like they talk a big game and then you find out they got a five-year sentence and they cooperated.

Yeah, yeah. And yeah, your case jumping, right? You were over on his case and you jumped on his and his and his. And or you pushed the button on someone and you're telling on someone. And I think it's because in there you could be whoever you want to be. And so many people inside, I think, really just don't, they don't know who they are. And think about 90% of incarcerated folks all come from fatherless homes. Think how powerful a dad is.

And think how many guys were in that were brought up in foster care, right? Never had a dad say that they were proud of them. never had a mom, you know, those daily times where I look at my wife now with our youngest son Flip, first thing in the morning. He just learned how to say, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom. And in the morning time, he's the first person she wants. He will mean mug me. I can't even get a hug. No one can't mom. But she'll sit there and she'll hold him and kiss him on the head. And he eats it up. up. But I'm thinking, I'm thinking like this, like, man, think of, and I, because I'll sit there and I'll watch it sometimes. I'll think of some of the guys that I was in prison with just how hard

they were and how they never had that. They never had that tender touch. And you think of people, it seems like people who grow up with love will love you more than you deserve. People who don't grow up with love, they'll be the first people to turn their backs on you, if that makes any sense. And what I'm seeing with him and his mom, my son Flip and his mom, like he's getting love and care and affirmation, and he knows what a snuggle feels like. He knows what it feels like to have Mom be excited to hold you and what it's like for dad. you know, to hug him in the morning time. Even when you don't give me a kiss, I need a kiss.

You know what I mean? And every night before they go to bed, I've been telling them this since I put them to bed. I read stories to them. And then we pray together before we're going. Every night before I turn the light off and say, hey, hey, bud, remember, you were born on the team. It's here to change the world. And I've been telling that since the day they were born because death and life is in the power of the tongue. And those affirmations that we speak over our children have the ability to change the whole trajectory of their life.

And it gives them something, if they ever wander off something that they can come back to. Because eventually, if we're not careful, their inner voice, that inner critic will sound just like our voice if we're not careful with our words. but if we're giving them a healthy dose of affirmation, I mean, that has the potential of transforming their lives and being able to champion positive affirmation so that they don't get to a place to where they're starving for it.

I mean, so many guys in prison, especially when they come home. I've got guys, I've had guys on my staff and half my leadership at the church are ex-knuckleheads turned Christian, right? and some of the guys that I've worked with in the past where they didn't get affirmation from their dads. They've come home, and when they get home, and these are guys who end up coming to the church, where they start preaching, and they're really good communicators,

and they can speak in a way where you'll feel like you're the only person in the room, and they're speaking directly to you. and after they get done, people will come up and pat them on the, man, that was really powerful. Man, that was good. Man, that really spoke to my heart. You know, all the different things. And then, and I have to tell them, I said, now you need to be careful now.

I said, because those affirmations, they feel really good. And if you're not careful, you'll replace what you're doing for those affirmations. Your motive can slowly begin to change. to now you found something that you're good at and it's positive and you're getting all this affirmation and you're starving for the affirmation so much that you'll begin to perform to get the affirmations. And it's a slow fate. It's not no one just sits. It's all, you don't want to start performing so I can get these affirmations.

Now we have to be very careful and pay attention to our hearts. Pay attention to our thought life. I'm like, man, if I ever start drifting to this place where I'm pursuing the person, praise of man, man, if that's ever taken away from me, I'm going to be in a tight rope, man, I'm going to be in a tough spot. Because if I, if I live for praise, I'll let them crucify me with their, with the criticism. You know what I mean? And, and that's something, I think some, guys, when that you're not dealing with that internal stuff. We got a, those are like those hidden things. Those are some of the things that we deal with in the curriculum. Like, here's

what you here's some of you may be confronted with this and you may be starving for affirmation. Then we talk about what is a good affirmation, right? Like I should be affirmed by my wife. There's certain confinance that should affirm me. If I do something great, I know there's certain guys that I have in my circle. They're never going to toot my horn. They're never going to, I'll never, even if they were like, wow, they never would be like, wow, dude, that was really good. They're just, they're not going to toot my horn. And if I ever get, hey, man, I was a good job of whatever, whatever, I'm just making something up.

Whatever I did. If they ever said good job, I know it's because they genuinely mean that. They're not, they're not concerned of different things that I get to be involved in and get to do. None of that stuff even matters. They, they care about me as a person, right? Not all the other stuff. And it's good.

We need people in our inner circle who we get after. from. But when it goes beyond that, and you get, and you go up and you speak and, and people come up, oh, wow, did that. Don't never forget who butters your bread. That's what I tell the guys. I said, they don't ever get to a place to where you're razzling and dazzling them like that. And don't have it something that you pursue. Don't give two thought. Just thank you, but don't forget who butters your bread. Because you get, you get into the pride. It could be a very slow fade. You get into that. you could very well knock yourself off in time and end up doing some damaging work to yourself if you're not careful.

What happened to your parents? My dad, when I came home, I pulled out to his house, so I got to stay with him and stayed at his apartment. He had an extra bedroom. Stayed there until I got married. So I waited until I got off parole until we got married. And so that was two years. And then we got married in July. Got off in May.

We got married in July. And in 2021, he got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And told me about it. He got on chemo, lost a lot of weight. And then he had what's called the Whipple surgery. It was like, I mean, it was like 18 inches long, cut him open, went in there, took part of the pancreas out and a couple other things. and then they said, hey, he's good to go.

He came to stay with us for a couple months, why I recovered. And, yeah, he recovered. And then I remember, I think he went back to his house like April or May. June, we took him with us along with my wife's parents to Kentucky to see the Noah's Ark thing down there in Kentucky. So we went down there, and he was like, man, I just, I have. whatever reason. Can't use the restroom, man. I feel like I got to go, but I can't.

And so we get back, he sets up a doctor's appointment and goes in there and they do x-rays. And they said, that thing has spread viciously. It's all over on the inside of you. Doctor says, you got like probably 90 days before you're going to die. We could do keep, but it's too far gone. We can't even do surgery. There's nothing we can do. it's it's over with we do chemo you may live maybe another year and he said man i ain't doing that

chemo stuff he said man i just you know i'm just going to trust god if he's going to heal me he's going to do it if not then it's just it's it's it's my time to step out of time into eternity and um so that was in june so october fourth um he passed away and um yeah And so October 4th of 22. Now, back up, my mom in 2017, when I was in prison, 2003, summer of 2003, she ended up having a drug overdose of heroin. But she barely made it through. I mean, she was out.

They had, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they ce they never, she was out and, you know, and she started breathing, you know, you know, you know, know, on her own in the middle of the night, that when she was at the hospital. But it had lack of oxygen to her brain, got to a place where she was like just bedridden. And then she was like that for like 15 years. What never put in the work to, you know, to learn how to walk again. Literally, I had to learn how to do everything over from eating, walking, talking. And she did just enough to, you know, to communicate and do what she had to do. And so she did that in December of 2017.

So that happened in 2013. So it was more than 15 years. Then December 19th, 2017, she passed away. And just complications to the drug overdose. And so, yeah, so both of them passed away. And there's me and I have an older brother. part that I did leave out my brother Eli, him and I were about 20 months apart. One did the paper out.

He died in 99 from a drug overdose. They found him dead at Indiana University. And so he passed away. And then I have an older brother, Yosef, who he's 11 years older than me. He lives in Mesquique. And then I have a sister. She's younger, a couple years younger than me. And she lives in Holland.

You know, even at that time, he was. her back right before I went to the joint, you know, she got called Stealing Cars and they sent her to Boys Town out in Nebraska. And then my brother had just recently passed away. And then here I am off to prison and then, you know, I mean, things were in a, I mean, that would take a whole other episode. You know, just the the craziness of that whole deal there was just, yeah, it was nuts, man. And I'm in my wife, Sarah, I have a daughter. She was born before. I went to prison, came home and took a while for our relationship to get to become good. And, you know, because I was gone those first 12 years.

So I had to learn on it. And I didn't have a good example in front of me. So then I'm like, well, I think I know what to do, but I'm not for sure. So I just, again, worked with what I got. And I always kept other guys around me who seemed to do really good at that. And I'd watch them and then imitate what I saw them do and then ask questions. And I eventually figured it out. And then my wife and I have three boys, seven, six, and two. So Boston is my oldest son.

Champ is my second oldest and flip is two years. The sports references? No, well, now Boston, you know, Boston was that city. I like listening to a podcast and I like history. So I was listening to some podcasts on Boston around this time. and it talked about how Boston was that city where a lot of the things that we enjoy in our communities in America all started in Boston. So the first public library started in Boston. I think Benjamin Franklin donated like 100 books to it when it first opened up. The first public park, that concept started in Boston.

The public school system started in Boston. My wife works for an organization. She's the executive director. She leads it. It's called the Hope Project, which is an anti-sex trafficking organization. And so in that podcast, it said that Boston was part of the Underground Railroad where a lot of the abolitionists would go to Boston, and that's where they would have their convenings and meetings to discuss how they were

going to get the slaves out of the south up there to the north and to the union. And so that kind of, you know, with her, with what she does, she, they, her and her team view themselves as abolitionists. You know, it's modern day slavery. So that and then Dunkin' Donuts started. And it's my favorite coffee shop started in Boston. But it was those first things. Like Boston is a history-making city, right? And that, as we see, as it goes from all the way out to L.A., you know, cities have city parks and public libraries and public schools. And then champ comes from a Bible verse in Isaiah 19 where God said he had raised up a champion from among his people. And I tell him all the time, I said, I said, bro, you're going to be a champion man in your generation. And God's going to give you influence to speak up for people who don't have any influence. So speaking life over him now and getting his mind prepared for when he, if, you know, when he recognizes he might be a little different than the others around him. that he'll understand why and that he speaks up for those who don't have a voice. And then flip, that comes from the idea out of the Bible.

People ask me that one all the time. Jesus' disciples are in Acts. The disciples were in the temple and preaching and pissing the Jews off. And they said, man, we need to these guys, we got to get them out of here because they're flipping the world upside down. You know what I mean? So him, and I tell him all the time, even though he's two, I just want him getting familiar with. bro, you're going to flip the world upside right, man. And you're not going to sit at tables that Jesus would flip.

And, yeah, you're going to flip this thing upside right. And you're going to be one who's going to flip the script on people in a good way. And you're going to have fresh vision and motivation and discipline to flip the script when things aren't going right. So try to prophesying to speak life over them, young boys, man. So when they get up, they know that they were born to change the world in the course of history for future. generations and be a history maker man. It's like what you're doing. What's something that you're teaching your kids now that you wish you were taught as a kid

or that you knew? Yeah. Well, I mean, one of the positive affirmations because understanding how powerful our words are. Because I can remember back, I remember this was something. This is my mom. I was probably nine years old. And she said, I need you go upstairs. I was like, go upstairs and clean your room or do something.

and I knew there was nothing more, because her and my dad's relationship was not the best, right? There's nothing more that would piss her off than telling her, you know, well, my dad didn't say I had to do it or, you know, it's something to put my dad in a good light and make her feel down here. There was nothing more that would piss her off. So this is one of those moments. her and I just you know she just oh man she's you know in my mind I'm and she's stupid and and she's like you know go upstairs and do it and I said I don't have to my dad didn't tell me I had to do it and I remember her looking at I still remember we were standing in the four year it was a sunny day out the lights coming in and she looked at me she says how do you know your dad your dad and then she

just said it just turned around walked away I go upstairs and do this I'm like I don't know if my dad is my dad. Dude, for like the, I didn't even say anything to my dad or anybody. I went to school with fear. And this is because my mom and dad weren't around. I'd be sitting in class. And this is what I thought. I created this story in my mind.

Like, man, there's going to some guy I don't know is going to come and knock on our classroom door and say, hey, I'm here to get, I'm Nate's dad. I'm here to pick him up. And I was going to have to go with this dude. who I didn't know. And I, after about two weeks, I'm like, okay, maybe it's not going to happen. So I just stuffed it away. I never told anybody. And then when I got to prison, I felt like the Lord was confronting me with all this

offensive bitterness and angry towards my mom. And that was one of the things that had come up. And I realized, man, that had a huge impact on me, her words, man. And I had to work through that. And I had to understand. So I wasn't pissed off at my mom, realized she was just working with what she had. She was broken to. You know what I mean?

Did she act like she loved us sometimes? She acted like we annoyed her and she ate us at other times. But I think she loved us. She was just working with what she had. You know what I mean? And I had to release that offense, but I'll never forget how powerful those words were. And I remember thinking, you know, with my kids. I'm going to, I am going to do my darnest to speak life over them.

And, and because words are, they're like well-driven nails, man. You know, they assemble and they build and they create things, right? And I'm like, man, I'm just, I'm going to speak life, speak truth to them in love. And I'm going to speak to their destinies to who I know they're going to be and what they're going to do. I'm not, you know, and again, she was broken, and I've had the opportunity to heal. I mean, obviously, that wouldn't even be an option. But that's one thing is the words that come out of my mouth, being very careful on the influence that I have as their dad in making sure I steward that properly. Because I've met a lot of guys over the years who hate their moms because of things that they said and even things that their actions said without them.

verbalizing it and now it's and it just like produced a hatred towards them their mother by them you know i mean i'm like man i can't i i i would that would be could you imagine like for me it's thinking about that makes me feel like like almost a little scared like man i couldn't imagine being the one who damaged my son and when they get older you can't do it you can't do anything. You know what I mean? It's that their children are like wet cement. You can put good impressions or bad impressions on them. By time they turn about 13, 14, 15 years old, that cement begins to harden. And you just help construct who that person is. And your words and your actions are going to be the two biggest things. They're going to have the biggest influence on

them. More so what they see. And kids are paying attention when you don't think they're paying attention and they hear stuff when you don't think they're they're paying attention to hear but man that's that's a fear is like i'm i shouldn't say a fear just like it it strikes a cautiousness in me when i think about it like you know this is how this is really important man i'm i got their little hearts in their minds and i get to help shape you know in some some degree how far they go in life right And I think words is probably the, is, you know, being a good steward of my words that come out when I'm speaking in, you know, how I treat their mother. All right. I don't want them, you know, if I can't yell at, mom, you can't yell at her.

You know, so if I can't lie to her, you can't lie to her. You know, I'm the sheriff here. I'm the law and order in this house. Mom's like a legislator. So if mom says something, that's just like me. You know, we have it a step. We obey the first time. I don't do the four or five times.

I'm yelling at you. We get tune-ups in our house. So we got a tune-up stick. But establishing that because the reason you obey the first time is if you go to work someday and your boss says, hey, I'm going to have you doing something different today. You know, you got to do it. crime or a wreck happens and people are all out in the street and the police show up and the police, hey, get up on the sidewalk, you got to do it. You don't sit there and argue with

your boss about why do you get me over here. And it's just like when they go to school, you know what I mean? I'm passing my authority over to your teacher. And if, you know, anything outside of these things, if your teacher asks you to do something and you don't, then you're going to have a problem with me because I'm, you know, When she opens up her mouth, it's just as if I'm opening up my house. And because, you know, growing up, we didn't have that a healthy perspective of authority. You know, like what does proper authority look like in learning how to respect those in authority, right? I didn't, I never, didn't have that growing up.

And so I'm like, ah, that's what, you know, that's how you end up out so far out in left field. that, you know, if I hadn't gone to prison, I probably would have never recovered. I'd probably been damaged goods, you know what I mean? But I had a chance to get there and slow down and kind of, you know, because then you got to get confronted with who you really are when you get there, right? The music's turned down, the lights are off, you don't have all the stuff, and now you get confronted with who you've really become. And you've got a decision, make.

You can continue to, you can turn that voice off and continue to do. what you were doing and mature and evil, or you can choose to say, man, something, something needs to change. And obviously what I'm doing isn't producing the fruit and the life that I want, right? So, yeah. Well, Nate, I appreciate you coming on the show today. Hey, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah. And thank you to Damon West. I could tell you that you guys are friends, because you both are very good speakers and you know how to tell a story without giving, like, you know, focusing on the small details. You keep it pushing. Yeah. And that's why he's best at. Awesome. I tell him often, I say, man, you motivate me and you inspire me.

Damon is a true testament of what it looks like coming home, keeping a great attitude, owning your stuff, being accountable. And so, yeah, he's like a big brother, someone who inspires me. So appreciate him. Definitely. Yeah.